Hive Wallet No Longer Maintained, Bitcoin Users Advised to Migrate

Every once in a while, the Bitcoin ecosystem is faced with a major curveball that no one saw coming. One of the most popular Bitcoin wallet solutions, called Hive Wallet is no longer being developed or maintained. To be more precise, there hasn’t been much growth going on over the past year or so, according to the developer. All Hive Wallet users are advised to do, is to move over funds to a different Bitcoin wallet solution, such as Mycelium or Breadwallet.

Finances Are the Downfall of Hive Wallet

Most Bitcoin developers create a project as a hobby, to see what they are capable of in terms of coding, as well as looking at ways to support the Bitcoin ecosystem. As a result, there are dozens of Bitcoin wallets in existence, most of which can be operated on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

But in the case of Hive Wallet, the overwhelming success of this project led to this mobile application being one of the most popular Bitcoin wallets in history. Developing and maintaining the Hive Wallet app quickly became a full-time job for Hive Wallet Founder Wendell Davis. But such a full-time job needs money to come in on a continual basis and this is where the problems started occurring.

“We’re out of operating capital and have been for quite a while, so no one has really been working on Hive for over a year. By that measure, Hive certainly failed as a company, though there is a glimmer of hope. I am sorry we did not inform people sooner of this situation.” – Wendell Davis stated in an interview.

Truth be told, there have been signs of problems with Hive Wallet for quite some time now, as a Reddit user reported problems when logging in a while ago. After trying to visit the Hive web page, which is still in operation but seems to behave strangely, there was no other option for this user than to contact the Hive Wallet creator directly.

Wendell Davis was rather open towards this Hive Wallet user and explained the Bitcoin wallet is no longer being maintained or developed. If some Hive Wallet users had bothered to check the project’s GitHub page, they would have noticed the lack of development much sooner than this. No major commits have been made for nearly 12 months, a clear indication that something was amiss.

Inability to Reach All Hive Wallet Users

Spreading the word about the halted support and development of Hive Wallet has proven to be quite difficult, as the developer is unable to contact all users directly. Due to this mishap in communication, none of the iOS users has been notified regarding this matter. It is important to note that nobody on the Hive Wallet team works directly with OS X or Apple’s platform, making iOS support impossible.

Android users, on the other hand, have gotten a minor patch recently, which was developed and applied by one of the Hive Wallet team members on his own accord. None of these changes has made it to the iOS version, unfortunately. Despite all of this, there have not been too many complaints from iOS users so far.

This is one of the downfalls when users aren’t asked to sign up for a service. While a lot of users value their privacy when using a Bitcoin wallet, it can also create a communications problem. For now, all users are advised to move funds out of their Hive Wallets as soon as possible and switch to properly maintained Bitcoin wallet solutions such as Mycelium and Breadwallet.

About JP Buntinx

JP Buntinx is a freelance writer active in the world of financial technologies. His work can be found all over the internet, and a complete portfolio is available at http://www.jpbuntinx.com. JP Is always open to new challenges and ideas.